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User: hawguy

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  1. Re:suure on Class Action Lawsuit Launched Over Forced Windows 10 Upgrades (courthousenews.com) · · Score: 1, Insightful

    hard drives breaks; needs to buy whole new computer...

    The kind of people that don't recognize (or stop) an operating system upgrade are the same kind of people that need to pay Geek Squad to replace their hard drive and reinstall the OS and applications -- at a price that's likely close to the price of buying a new low-end computer.

  2. A bad hard drive isn't MS's fault on Class Action Lawsuit Launched Over Forced Windows 10 Upgrades (courthousenews.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "does not check the condition of the PC and whether or not the hard drive can withstand the stress of the Windows 10 installation," according to Courthouse News, which adds that the lead plaintiff "says her hard drive failed after Windows 10 installed without her express approval,

    If your hard drive dies during an OS install, it was on its way out and would have soon died anyway.

  3. Re:Good laws should be technology neutral on London Terrorist Used WhatsApp, UK Calls For Backdoors (yahoo.com) · · Score: 1

    No, they already do that. Send a 100 dollar bill in an envelope without insurance and see if your letter makes it.

    I've done that before when I was out of checks and wanted to send someone a graduation present. It made it unscathed. To be honest, I'd rather have someone steal my cash than a check since the account number on the check literally gives them a blank check to steal money from my account.

  4. Re:Since when on London Terrorist Used WhatsApp, UK Calls For Backdoors (yahoo.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I believe Khalid was a British citizen. That's why he's allowed "in the UK". The bigger question is why aren't the British (and the Americans for that matter) insisting that new citizens (including their children) become CITIZENS of that country in heart and soul, not just a piece of paper with allegiance back to terrorist orgs/states, islamic or otherwise. But if we attempt to even say that, the snowflakes start yelling RAYCYST!!@#!

    How would you do that? Is there some scanner that can look into one's heart and soul?

  5. Re:Since when on London Terrorist Used WhatsApp, UK Calls For Backdoors (yahoo.com) · · Score: 1

    Is a VW golf an SUV?

    It's not (though I think the Golf is called the Polo in the UK), but it's not clear why you're asking since the attacker was driving a rented Hyundai Tucson.

  6. "We don't want to start putting in commercial opportunities that we think users don't want to interact with,"

    You know what people call "commercial opportunities that users do want to interact with"? They call them ads.

    And I have no problem with ads like this in the proper context "Alexa, I need toilet paper." "Ok, you can buy the same brand you bought the last time, but Charmin is on sale today and is $2.37 less expensive"

    That's the kind of ad I'm happy to have, but I don't want to hear "Today's weather is sunny and 63 degrees. Today is clean-your-butt day and we have Charmin on sale!"

  7. -1 Troll

    Some people just can't handle the truth.

  8. I checked twitter and the highest profile extremist account @realDonaldTrump is still there.

  9. Re:Arms dealer cartel rejoyce on A US Ally Shot Down a $200 Drone With a $3 Million Patriot Missile (theverge.com) · · Score: 2

    And you believe this?

    The US has a 3 trillion dollar budget. Even if the Armed forces had 1/3 of that (it doesn't) you would say it can't account (meaning lost or stolen) over 6 years worth of funding.

    And you believe your bull$hit? Or is it that you didn't think about what you were reading?

    That figure came from a DoD Office of Inspector General report:

    The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management & Comptroller) (OASA[FM&C]) and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service Indianapolis (DFAS Indianapolis) did not adequately support $2.8 trillion in third quarter journal voucher (JV) adjustments and $6.5 trillion in yearend JV adjustments made to AGF data during FY 2015 financial statement compilation. The unsupported JV adjustments occurred because OASA(FM&C) and DFAS Indianapolis did not prioritize correcting the system deficiencies that caused errors resulting in JV adjustments, and did not provide sufficient guidance for supporting systemgenerated adjustments.

    If the DoD can't accurately track where they are spending money today, how do they know they need more money, or if they do, where they need to spend it?

  10. I've forgotten too on 82% of Kids in 'Netflix Only' Homes Have No Idea What Commercials Are (exstreamist.com) · · Score: 5, Informative

    I haven't forgotten commercials entirely, but I've forgotten what they are like, and they are super annoying. Last time I stayed in a hotel, I flipped on TV and tried to watch a show -- I didn't make it past the first half of the show before I flipped off the TV and went to my laptop to watch Netflix because I couldn't stand the ads.

  11. >If he was really into engineering, he'd be in clubs, he'd have projects outside of the class to point to.
    Oh, I see, good idea, if we move these goalposts far enough we'll circle the earth and loop back around to supporting a family on a high school diploma.

    The goalposts haven't really been moved -- the same was true when I was in school and that was decades ago. The thing that's changd since then is the expectation that the college degree itself guarantees a job.

  12. Re:Locals preferred ? on IEEE-USA Criticizes Failure To Reform The H-!B Program (ieee.org) · · Score: 2

    And no, statements about "searches" aren't really what I'm looking for. Designing a "search" with the objective to find zero "qualified" candidates is trivially easy.

    I don't know if you've ever done recruiting, but it's very time consuming, we don't search for a candidate if we're not looking for one.

    When I say we search for a local candidate, we do a legitimate search, bring candidates in for interviews (flying them in if they are from out of area), and then if we don't find someone locally, we'll start interviewing potential H1-B's. If there's a qualified American candidate, there's no reason to take an H1-B over him (or her) -- it's not like we're saving any money with H1-B's -- the highly qualified individuals we hire know the market and won't let us undercut them on salary.

  13. Re:Locals preferred ? on IEEE-USA Criticizes Failure To Reform The H-!B Program (ieee.org) · · Score: 1

    But that's not the question. Did you ever want to hire a specific H1B for a position, but you had to hire a local person instead? That's the question.

    Doesn't this answer the question:

    My company always searches for local candidates and candidates in this country before looking for H1-B's

    So, no I've never seen a case here where we found an H1-B candidate before we searched for (and didn't find) an American candidate. Jobs are always posted internally before they are opened up to outside candidates, and we won't consider an H1-B candidate if we have a suitable American candidate, and we give preference to candidates living in the local area.

  14. Re:Locals preferred ? on IEEE-USA Criticizes Failure To Reform The H-!B Program (ieee.org) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Genuine question here. Companies are supposed to hire local people if they are available and H1Bs only when there are no qualified locals. The question is:

    Have any of you ever been hired instead of an H1B because you are local? Have you ever heard of a situation where a company wanted to hire an H1B but ended up having to hire a local person instead because of this requirement?

    In my experience, the idea that H1Bs only get hired if there are no locals available is complete fiction. Has anyone ever seen this rule help a local person get a job instead of an H1B?

    My company always searches for local candidates and candidates in this country before looking for H1-B's -- hiring an H1B worker is hard, you have to interview them, decide to hire them, *then* wait month(s) to see if you can actually get them a visa. We've lost some really good candidates that either weren't able to get an H1-B in the lottery, or they just got tired of waiting for it to come through and they took a job locally.

    Used as it's meant, the H1-B program is very valuable to american businesses and workers -- it helps businesses succeed by giving them the talent they need to start grow. My company was started by a team of 5 - one was an H1-B holder, 3 others were green card holders who previously held H1-B's (those three have since become US citizens), we've now grown to around 250 people, I think around 20% of our engineering team is made up of H1-B workers (all PhD's from well known schools, with degrees in the domain my company specializes in). We have a strong college recruitment program, traveling to about a half dozen USA colleges a year, but we can't find the senior staff we need from American universities alone. Due to my work on our HR system, I can verify that they are paid comparably to our american workers (not even taking into account the higher hiring costs due to the cost to get the visa, relocation costs, etc)

    Without the H1-B program, I doubt this company would have ever been founded, or if it was, it would have been based in Europe where most of the founders were from. In fact, we're scouting around for a European office due to the uncertainty in the H1-B program, so we may curtail hiring in the USA as we build up a European engineering team.

  15. Re:Isn't it being reformed? on IEEE-USA Criticizes Failure To Reform The H-!B Program (ieee.org) · · Score: 1

    Isn't H1B issuance impossible right BECAUSE it's being reformed? What am I missing?

    No... It's in a normal shutdown of expedited visas so they can catch up on applications. This has happened before.

  16. 80 cents plus $100 per year is still a pretty good deal though.

    You don't seem to understand Prime -- it's not just "free shipping", but it's "free express shipping" -- so whether or not it's worth it depends on how fast you want the product. For this product, If I order through Prime, they'll deliver them by Sunday evening. If I save 80 cents and order through the other merchant, they'll arrive sometime between Wednesday and next Monday. Or I can pay $9.50 for expedited shipping and have them here by Monday.

    Plus I get Amazon's trouble-free customer service for amazon fulfilled products, if the product arrives late or damaged, they'll take it back (and pay for return shipping) free of charge, no questions asked.

  17. Its a total scam dude, that is why Amazon is being sued over Prime. Log out and then look at the prices of several items, note them then log back in and see what the prices are. You'll find your Amazon Prime membership will often raise the prices on items so you aren't saving shit, its just a shell game and all you are really getting for the $100 a year is the streaming service.

    Personally I don't think their content is worth anywhere near a c-note a year so I passed on it but YMMV.

    The article you linked to doesn't match what you are saying.

    The lawsuit claims:

    Instead, the suits accuse Amazon of offering free shipping on items whose prices had been inflated to incorporate the cost of the shipping.

    Well duh, Amazon doesn't try to hide that, items with "free" prime shipping often cost more than items without free shipping, or with paid shipping.

    This is especially true with low-cost items. For example: Sharpie Permanent Markers, Ultra Fine Point, Black, 5 Count

    Here's the pricing Amazon advertises:

    Price: $5.79 FREE Shipping (3 days) for Prime members Details

    Note: Available at a lower price from other sellers, potentially without free Prime shipping.

    New (61) from $4.99 & FREE shipping.

    I've tried the "Clear your cookies and check pricing" trick after other people have said that Amazon inflates prime prices, and haven't seen any difference for Amazon fulfilled products between what I see when I'm logged in and when I'm not. I'd be really surprised if Amazon actually did this since it would quickly be discovered and would cause a backlash.

  18. I want to like the cloud but it's too expensive for me to do anything other than dabble. About a week ago I ran 8 cores for a week on the Google cloud and it cost me about $30. I'd like to run a bit more but $50/month is about the upper limit of what the wife is comfortable with. So, for me, the cloud is nice, but too expensive to be life changing, so to speak.

    If your wife is setting your budget, you're not in the target market for big cloud providers. Does your wife care about scalability? Does she see the benefit of being able to add 500 servers to your pool for this afternoon's peak load, and then releasing them after peak to save money? What sort of durability does she expect for your data? Does she want you to spread your servers across AZ's or regions so if one goes down, your service can still live on?

    If not, then you can probably host it on your home desktop and home internet connection and save a lot of money.

  19. Re:Obligatory Oatmeal on Despite Netflix and Amazon Prime, Most of the World Watches Pirated Content (techinasia.com) · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

    Sure that's funny and all, but how do I find the site for "Impossibly proportioned girls that want to date your testicles!"? I've been searching for that my whole life!

  20. Re:lol amazon prime on Despite Netflix and Amazon Prime, Most of the World Watches Pirated Content (techinasia.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dude. Amazon prime's streaming is garbage. It's all bait n switch. You're paying 100 bucks a year and you only get a handful of episodes per show/season. After that they expect you to pay per episode. No thanks.

    Well, you're not paying $100/year for prime streaming. At least few people are.

    I'm paying $100/year for the shipping benefits (I make it all back during Christmastime when I send gifts to my extended family), the prime streaming is just a perk... and sometimes useful since there are some shows that Prime has that Netflix doesn't. So prime streaming is worth something to be, but not $100/year. Maybe $10/year. Though if I didn't have Netflix, Prime Video would be much more valuable to me.

  21. Why 1500:1? on Music Charts No Longer Make Sense (qz.com) · · Score: 2

    One “unit” is equivalent to either one album sale, 10 track sales, or 1,500 song streams ...

    It becomes an odd, if necessary, way of calculating charts, because it means people who pay the most for an artist's music count for the least when sales are tallied.

    But consumers don't really care which songs earn the artist the most money, they care which ones are the most popular songs. When I buy an album I rarely listen to it more than a few times after the purchase (but I'll come back to it later). I don't understand the 1500:1 ratio for streams to albums when computing rank. It seems like 10:1 or 100:1 would be a more fair representation of how much people like it. Even for songs that I really like, if they come up too many times in rotation in my playlists, I'll vote it down because I get tired of the same song over and over.

    And if I buy a track, it's because I really like that track and didn't want the album, so why does it take 10 track sales to equal one album sale?

    I guess the answer is that the Billboard Charts aren't meant to reflect popularity, but just revenue, which certainly has value to the industry, but not so much to individual listeners.

  22. Re:Time To Invest In Infrastructure on Waze and Other Traffic Dodging Apps Prompt Cities To Game the Algorithms (usatoday.com) · · Score: 1

    "my own street."

    And here we have the typical example of an asshole who doesn't know that my tax dollars pay for that fucking road as well, so no, you DON'T fucking own it.

    Assholes like you are why Trump got elected.

    Actually, my street was paid for and is maintained almost entirely out of property tax dollars, while most of the commuters cutting through from the freeway are just on their way home to the next county (or beyond). So no, your tax dollars didn't pay for it. But you (and I) paid for the federally funded freeway you're escaping.

  23. Re:Time To Invest In Infrastructure on Waze and Other Traffic Dodging Apps Prompt Cities To Game the Algorithms (usatoday.com) · · Score: 1

    Let us know when someone asks you to make that choice. Until then, it's up to everyone and about what's best for most. Build over or build under and yes, it will be expensive and people will lose their homes and business just like they did the first time the freeways were built. Did you really think this just had to be done once and that we'd be good forever?

    Someone already asked me to make that choice, maybe it was even you, Anonymous Coward:

    Oh, you mean we're just supposed to sit in gridlock instead?

    He asked, I answered.

  24. Re:Time To Invest In Infrastructure on Waze and Other Traffic Dodging Apps Prompt Cities To Game the Algorithms (usatoday.com) · · Score: 2

    Oh, you mean we're just supposed to sit in gridlock instead? Our highways have been an inadequate crumbling mess for decades. The proper response here is to fix them, not gripe that there's an inadequate workaround.

    If I had to choose between you and 1000 other commuters racing down my small residential street and you sitting in traffic, I'd pick having you sit in traffic. I didn't move within walking distance of work to have to deal with commute traffic on my own street.

    There's no easy "fix" to congested freeways around here -- the freeways have already expanded to the center as far as they can go, and they are surrounded by homes and businesses to each side, so any expansion would be prohibitively expensive.

  25. RAID if you must, but cloud is better on Ask Slashdot: Best File System For the Ages? · · Score: 1

    Just RAID it (preferably mirroring)store multiple redundant copies, physically separated. Either use a checksumming filesystem (i.e. zfs) or make your own checksums so you can recognize bitrot.

    But you'll never know when things have degraded beyond recovery, .

    Unless you're prepared to regularly validate that the data is still readable, you'd be better off storing the data at any major cloud vendor and let *them* verify integrity over time. Or better, mirror the data across multiple cloud providers.

    My most important data is family photos (some scanned images date back to the early 1900's). I keep the image files on a RAID-6 hard disk array, which is backed up to a separate hard drive in another part of the house once a week (for quick local restores), everything is also backed up to a Crashplan cloud backup account, and all of the files are also backed up to AWS Glacier in a different country from me.